walmart, big business, "aaht" vs. craft

updated wed 3 sep 03

S Slatin on sun 31 aug 03

I believe we're hashing over the same issues that Morris et.al. dealt
with more than a century ago leading into the Arts and Crafts movement.

A&C was a reaction to the industrial revolution. If you can buy a
shirt, or a teacup made in a factory cheap, what justifies buying a
hand-made one dear? Morris argued that individual craftsmanship and
design made that difference. (Then again, Walter Crane, a painter and
engraver prominent in the movement, did engravings for childrens' books
that were so good and so popular that they had huge press runs ...)

Maybe we're looking at the wrong side of the equation. There's an
explosion
in collectibles in the US today (see what they're selling on E-bay).
You can't be John Henry against the steam drill -- you can't compete on
volume/price. If you let that end of the market alone, though, maybe
you can do well making collectibles. Distinctive, short-run productions
could do also (I know someone who did well selling ashtrays to
restaurants with the name of the firm at the base in the days when you
could smoke over a coffee). Uniquely well-designed things always sell,
eventually. Custom ware for particular interior designs could be a
field
of its own.

While I wait for my wheel to arrive, I think about cup handles. Why?
Because I know that I can go to Target, K-Mart, WalMart, Pier 1, etc.
for
hours of shopping looking for anything with a comfortable handle and
never
find it. But I know how to pull a cup handle that works.* Don't we all
sometimes paste on a handle specially for a left handed drinker? Adjust
shapes that work better for tea, coffee, espresso? Won't those clunky
4" cylinders at WalMart seem pretty nasty by comparison with our stuff
at its best? If so, we just need to find the market for our
arts-or-crafts-
pick-the-term-you-prefer. If we can't make things that are better in
visible or tactile aspect, why shouldn't a buyer save their money and
shop based on price alone?

-- Steve S

*extruders? Phah! We don't need no stinking extruders!

S Slatin on mon 1 sep 03

Ooh, are we off-topic now.

There is some randomness to much of our era's art. I used
to make jewelry by heating wax in a spoon and dripping it
onto a bowl of water. I'd pull off a few dozen drip-forms
in a day, select those that had potential for shapes, cut
or melt away and excess quantity of wax, cast them in silver,
add findings for stones, mount, polish, and sell them. Great
fun, and it took no real artistic skill (planning, execution,
etc.) at all. I used to tell myself there was an element of
connoisseurship in the selections I made, but most likely I
was lying.

Now these little baubles (pins, earrings, pendants) sold like
hotcakes. My clients saw more there than was there. But jewelry
is always viewed, in a small sense, as art, even when it's
factory made. So as far as your question of how anything can
be better than the person doing it, I'd say ... by accident, or
by perception of the individual evaluating the worth of the item.
One man's trash is another's treasure ...

The industrial revolution changed everything, by making massive
numbers of hand-workers obsolete. The agricultural revolution
did the same thing. By the '50's, Galbraith pointed out we had
again changed everything in the US by solving the "problem of
production" (working out how to make constant progressive
efficiencies in production until we had the capacity to clothe,
feed, and house the entire population).

150 years ago the key issues in the industrial revolution were
things like what to do with weavers who were out of work, and
how to deal with the massive amounts of newly-imported tea, which
could now be drunk cheap from hundreds of routinely produced cups vs.
the probably cracked bowl a workingman might have used 50 years
earlier, if he'd been able to afford the tea to begin with, which
he couldn't.

The IR brought us inexpensive, readily available food, housing,
clothing, cutlery, china, glassware, transportation, entertainment,
even computers. What we do with this abundance of material goods
is our own business, but if we buy hundreds of cheap WalMart mugs
we probably aren't going to be too happy. If we use our wealth
to buy enough to live on of what's inexpensive and serviceable and
factory produced, and expend the rest on things that are somehow
special and give us great satisfaction, we are leveraging the
advantages of the IR to improve all aspects of our lives.

But this is ClayArt, right? Here's my OOTR --

I need a white or near-white stoneware base, cone 6 or thereabouts, for
when my wheel arrives and I get back into throwing. I can get to
Seattle Pottery or Clay Arts in Tacoma, and does anyone have any
suggestions" I want to get a pickup-load of probably not more than two
clay bodies, and don't want many boxes of unuseful clay in the shed.

-- Steve S

-----------------------
Hi Steve,

I am not a student of the topic in so far as I am familiar
with the observations of Will'm Morris or others...

But I may note, that to me, the issues seem to resolve less
on abstract notions of 'production' than upon those
qualities of human character as govern the sense and import
of what is produced, how, and for whom and why...

Once matters are merely about 'money' and acounting
proceedures, all as may have been worth having, is lost.

I love the Industrial 'revolution' ( so called ) and am
aghast sometimes of how so few people understand it in terms
other than of some nonfamiliarity from which they cannot
relate to it at all. It's Century and a half of whackyness
and earnest and dizzyingly vast arrays of things 'made' well
and often splendidly, with much 'hand' Work met and exceeded
about all our present austensible criteria for well made
things, and honest things, and often artistic
things...Craftsmanship was not some ambiguous allusion to
which almost no one can relate or identify, to be discussed
by acedemics. It was the pandemic...it was the way things
were. It was normal, expected, and less than that was not
patronized much or for long in any venue.

I distinguish as well it's (the Industrial revolution's)
occasions of genius, of fun, of social kindness and
deference, of independance in so many ways TO do things,
things of manners and taste, or, those occasions (as now
predomonate remourselessly) of the worst banality, greed,
cynical,
and or generally ill mannered pretense, contempt,
patronization, exploitation, deciet and their hi-paid
corporate oversight.

How is anything to be any 'better' than 'who' is doing it?

Phil
Las Vegas

pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on mon 1 sep 03

Hi Steve,

I am not a student of the topic in so far as I am familiar
with the observations of Will'm Morris or others...

But I may note, that to me, the issues seem to resolve less
on abstract notions of 'production' than upon those
qualities of human character as govern the sense and import
of what is produced, how, and for whom and why...

Once matters are merely about 'money' and acounting
proceedures, all as may have been worth having, is lost.

I love the Industrial 'revolution' ( so called ) and am
aghast sometimes of how so few people understand it in terms
other than of some nonfamiliarity from which they cannot
relate to it at all. It's Century and a half of whackyness
and earnest and dizzyingly vast arrays of things 'made' well
and often splendidly, with much 'hand' Work met and exceeded
about all our present austensible criteria for well made
things, and honest things, and often artistic
things...Craftsmanship was not some ambiguous allusion to
which almost no one can relate or identify, to be discussed
by acedemics. It was the pandemic...it was the way things
were. It was normal, expected, and less than that was not
patronized much or for long in any venue.

I distinguish as well it's (the Industrial revolution's)
occasions of genius, of fun, of social kindness and
deference, of independance in so many ways TO do things,
things of manners and taste, or, those occasions (as now
predomonate remourselessly) of the worst banality, greed,
cynical,
and or generally ill mannered pretense, contempt,
patronization, exploitation, deciet and their hi-paid
corporate oversight.

How is anything to be any 'better' than 'who' is doing it?

Phil
Las Vegas

----- Original Message -----

From: "S Slatin"

> I believe we're hashing over the same issues that Morris
et.al. dealt
> with more than a century ago leading into the Arts and
Crafts movement.
>
> A&C was a reaction to the industrial revolution. If you
can buy a
> shirt, or a teacup made in a factory cheap, what justifies
buying a
> hand-made one dear? Morris argued that individual
craftsmanship and
> design made that difference. (Then again, Walter Crane, a
painter and
> engraver prominent in the movement, did engravings for
childrens' books
> that were so good and so popular that they had huge press
runs ...)
>
> Maybe we're looking at the wrong side of the equation.
There's an
> explosion
> in collectibles in the US today (see what they're selling
on E-bay).
> You can't be John Henry against the steam drill -- you
can't compete on
> volume/price. If you let that end of the market alone,
though, maybe
> you can do well making collectibles. Distinctive,
short-run productions
> could do also (I know someone who did well selling
ashtrays to
> restaurants with the name of the firm at the base in the
days when you
> could smoke over a coffee). Uniquely well-designed things
always sell,
> eventually. Custom ware for particular interior designs
could be a
> field
> of its own.
>
> While I wait for my wheel to arrive, I think about cup
handles. Why?
> Because I know that I can go to Target, K-Mart, WalMart,
Pier 1, etc.
> for
> hours of shopping looking for anything with a comfortable
handle and
> never
> find it. But I know how to pull a cup handle that works.*
Don't we all
> sometimes paste on a handle specially for a left handed
drinker? Adjust
> shapes that work better for tea, coffee, espresso? Won't
those clunky
> 4" cylinders at WalMart seem pretty nasty by comparison
with our stuff
> at its best? If so, we just need to find the market for
our
> arts-or-crafts-
> pick-the-term-you-prefer. If we can't make things that
are better in
> visible or tactile aspect, why shouldn't a buyer save
their money and
> shop based on price alone?
>
> -- Steve S